4 ms·

Conversation and Ideas

31 points by bcjordan 6y ago

recursivedoubts 6y ago
> The best conversations make your ideas better and feel magical. The worst conversations make all thoughts blurry and leave you pessimistic. But what about the conversations that make your ideas better and leave you pessimistic? Or is that uncommon for other people?
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  Why would you become more pessimistic if a conversation enabled you to improve your ideas?
  - recursivedoubts 6y ago
    you can start here: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    If you start with an overly optimistic view of reality and then are brought back down to earth?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- wellpast 6y ago
  What would be an example? Someone convinces you that devastating climate change is unavoidable? Or that life is meaningless? Here's an idea, an axiom perhaps: It's impossible, by definition, for any idea to be innately pessimistic.
  - shkkmo 6y ago
    Is it possibly for any idea to be anything innately? Or are all attributes of an idea dependant on the connections made between that idea and other ideas?
  - wtetzner 6y ago
    Except he said the conversation could leave you pessimistic, even if the idea improved. Perhaps you were overly optimistic about your idea, and the conversation both pointed out how the idea can improve, as well as why the idea is not as good as you originally thought it was.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
alexashka 6y ago
> The best conversations make your ideas better and feel magical. The worst conversations make all thoughts blurry and leave you pessimistic. This will pass. The author seems to have discovered how small and selfish a world most people inhabit, how unconstrained by logical consistency or concern for what happens to humanity as a whole, how trivial and reliant upon what others will think of them. Yes, that is most people, most of the time :) Thankfully - a good conversation, a meeting of the minds, is just one of many little joys life has to offer. I'd suggest finding joy in something that's unrelated to human beings acting in a rational manner.
Harj 6y ago
> To improve the quality of your idea conversations be picky about who you discuss ideas with. I’ve now mostly figured out the right balance for me to do this in real life. Where I struggle is with conversations online. I think one reason HN has such a high quality of conversations, compared with other forums, is most people here are motivated by finding the truth behind ideas. Twitter, for example, is at the opposite end. It feels like a firehose of conflicting motives coming at me at once. The only solution I’ve found there is to stay logged out most of the time. reply

31 points by bcjordan 6y ago

> The best conversations make your ideas better and feel magical. The worst conversations make all thoughts blurry and leave you pessimistic. But what about the conversations that make your ideas better and leave you pessimistic? Or is that uncommon for other people?

happytoexplain 6y ago
Why would you become more pessimistic if a conversation enabled you to improve your ideas?
- recursivedoubts 6y ago
  you can start here: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  If you start with an overly optimistic view of reality and then are brought back down to earth?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
wellpast 6y ago
What would be an example? Someone convinces you that devastating climate change is unavoidable? Or that life is meaningless? Here's an idea, an axiom perhaps: It's impossible, by definition, for any idea to be innately pessimistic.
- shkkmo 6y ago
  Is it possibly for any idea to be anything innately? Or are all attributes of an idea dependant on the connections made between that idea and other ideas?
- wtetzner 6y ago
  Except he said the conversation could leave you pessimistic, even if the idea improved. Perhaps you were overly optimistic about your idea, and the conversation both pointed out how the idea can improve, as well as why the idea is not as good as you originally thought it was.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

alexashka 6y ago

> The best conversations make your ideas better and feel magical. The worst conversations make all thoughts blurry and leave you pessimistic. This will pass. The author seems to have discovered how small and selfish a world most people inhabit, how unconstrained by logical consistency or concern for what happens to humanity as a whole, how trivial and reliant upon what others will think of them. Yes, that is most people, most of the time :) Thankfully - a good conversation, a meeting of the minds, is just one of many little joys life has to offer. I'd suggest finding joy in something that's unrelated to human beings acting in a rational manner.

Harj 6y ago

> To improve the quality of your idea conversations be picky about who you discuss ideas with. I’ve now mostly figured out the right balance for me to do this in real life. Where I struggle is with conversations online. I think one reason HN has such a high quality of conversations, compared with other forums, is most people here are motivated by finding the truth behind ideas. Twitter, for example, is at the opposite end. It feels like a firehose of conflicting motives coming at me at once. The only solution I’ve found there is to stay logged out most of the time. reply